Garfield & Friends Jim Davis Cartoonist, Author, Producer, Director, President, Founder, Screenwriter, Playwright, Environmentalist, Philanthropist — all these titles can be used to describe Jim Davis, best-known as the creator of GARFIELD. Jim Davis, 1947 Jim Davis was born July 28, 1945 in Marion, Indiana, and raised on a small farm with his parents, James and Betty Davis, and his younger brother, Dave (Doc). Like most farms, the barnyard had its share of stray cats; about 25 at one time, by Jim's estimation. As a child, he suffered serious bouts with asthma and was often bedridden. Forced inside, away from regular farm chores, he whiled away the hours drawing pictures. Gnorm Gnat In college, he studied art and business before going to work for TUMBLEWEEDS creator, Tom Ryan. There, he learned the skills and discipline necessary to become a syndicated cartoonist and began his own strip, GNORM GNAT. When he tried to sell the strip to a newspaper syndicate he was told, "It's funny, but bugs?

Who can relate to a bug?" After five years of GNORM, Davis crushed the bug strip idea and tried a new tact, studying the comics pages closely. He noticed there were a lot of successful strips about dogs, but none about cats! Combining his wry wit with the art skills he had honed since childhood, GARFIELD, a fat, lazy, lasagna loving, cynical cat was born. Davis says Garfield is a composite of all the cats he remembered from his childhood, rolled into one feisty orange fur ball. Garfield was named after his grandfather, James Garfield Davis. Garfield first appeared in June 19, 1978 The strip debuted on June 19, 1978 in 41 U.S. newspapers. Several months after the launch, the Chicago Sun-Times cancelled GARFIELD. Over 1300 angry readers demanded that GARFIELD be reinstated. It was, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, GARFIELD is read in over 2100 newspapers by 200 million people.

Guinness World Records™, named GARFIELD “The Most Widely Syndicated Comic Strip in the World.” Davis’s peers at the National Cartoonist Society honored him with Best Humor Strip (1981 and 1985), the Elzie Segar Award (1990), and the coveted Reuben Award (1990), the top award presented to a cartoonist by NCS members. Garfield quickly became a sensation in the licensing world, too, inspiring Davis to form his own company to take care of Garfield business concerns. Paws, Inc., founded in 1981, manages the worldwide rights for the famous fat cat, and Davis serves as President. Jim has won four Emmy Awards Garfield’s fame spilled over to television and Davis penned eleven primetime specials for CBS-TV. He received ten Emmy nominations and four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program. Movies were next, and Twentieth Century Fox turned out Garfield: The Movie (‘04), and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties (‘06).

Davis also wrote the original screenplays and executive produced three animated features for DVD: Garfield Gets Real (‘07), Garfield’s Fun Fest (‘08), and Garfield’s Pet Force (‘09). Also in 2009. “The Garfield Show” made its debut on Cartoon Network. Today, the CGI animated cartoon is in its fourth season and is seen in 131 countries, including China, where CCTV broadcasts the show daily. Davis’s philanthropy has been directed at educational and environmental projects. He founded The Professor Garfield Foundation in cooperation with Ball State University, to support children’s literacy. A free educational web site is the cornerstone of the Foundation’s work to date. Davis spearheaded reforestation, prairie and wetlands restorations, and built the world’s first all natural wastewater plant for commercial use. He was awarded the National Arbor Day Foundation’s Good Steward and Special Projects Award, and the Indiana Wildlife Federations’ Conservationist of the Year Award. Davis spends his leisure time golfing, gardening, fishing, and enjoying his wife, children, and grandchildren.

In a nod to Garfield’s friends in the comic strip, Davis also keeps one cat, Nermal, and a dog, Pooky. Advertisement Jim Davis | Garfield Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Betty Davis (Mother) James Robert "Jim" Davis (born July 28, 1945) is the creator of Garfield . As a cartoonist, he has also worked on Tumbleweeds (as an assistant to Tom Ryan), Gnorm Gnat , U.S. Acres (Orson's Farm outside the United States), and a strip about Mr. Potato Head. He is the writer of all the CBS television specials and the direct-to-video movies, as well as a producer/executive producer for Garfield and Friends , the DTV movies, and The Garfield Show . He will be an executive producer for an upcoming film . Contents [ show ] Biography Jim Davis was born in Marion, Indiana on July 28th, 1945, and grew up on a small farm in Fairmount, Indiana with his father James William Davis, mother Anna Catherine (Carter) Davis, brother Dave, and twenty-five cats.

Growing up, Davis recalled that after finishing his chores he would spend much of free time drawing; however he admitted his childhood drawings were of such poor quality that if he drew a cow he would have to label his drawing "cow", or else he would later fail to recognize his own work. Davis' childhood on a farm parallels the life of his cartoon character Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle , who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy. Jon, too, is a cartoonist, and also celebrates his birth-day on July 28th. Davis attended Ball State University. While attending Ball State, he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity. Ironically, considering his fame as a cartoonist who draws a cat, his first wife Carolyn (Altekruse) was allergic to cats although they owned a dog named Molly. They have a son, James Alexander Davis. On July 16, 2000, Davis married his current wife Jill. They have three children: James, Ashley, and Christopher. Davis as of 2007 resides in Albany, Indiana, where he and his staff produce Garfield under his company, Paws, Inc.

, begun in 1981. Paws, Inc. employs nearly fifty artists and licensing administrators, who work with agents around the world managing Garfield's vast licensing, syndication, and entertainment empire. Davis is a former President of the Fairfax, Indiana FFA chapter. Career Prior to creating Garfield, Davis worked for a local advertising agency and in 1969 began assisting Tom Ryan's comic strip, Tumbleweeds . He then created a comic strip, Gnorm Gnat , that ran for five years in The Pendleton Times, an Indiana newspaper. Davis tried to sell it to a national comic strip syndicate, but an editor told him, "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugs — nobody can relate to bugs!" In the final strip, Davis killed off all the characters by having them get stepped on by a giant foot. On June 19, 1978, Garfield started syndication in forty-one news-papers. Things were going well until the Chicago Sun-Times canceled the strip, prompting an outcry from 1,300 readers. Garfield was reinstated and the strip quickly became the fastest selling comic strip in the world.

Today it is syndicated in 2400 news-papers and is read by approximately 200,000,000 readers each day. In the 1988-1994 cartoon series Garfield and Friends , one episode ("Mystic Manor") has a scene where Garfield slid down a fireman's pole in a haunted house, and Davis has a brief cameo as himself drawing a cartoon. In the intro to one of the Garfield treasuries, there was a mock headline saying "Jim Davis Exposed as Fraud" showing Garfield at the drawing table creating a cartoonized Jim Davis, in which the fake headline reads that Davis is under investigation for plagiarism, as "Garfield himself draws his own strip!" The page shows Garfield drawing Jim Davis who looks like a bald Jon Arbuckle with a pony-tail. It is implied that Arbuckle is a drawing of a young Davis himself. In the 1980s, Davis also made the barn-yard slap-stick comic strip U.S. Acres , featuring Orson the Pig. Outside the U.S., the strip was known as Orson's Farm.

Davis also made a 2000-2003 strip based on the toy Mr. Potato Head with Brett Koth. The idea was to do a strip from Davis' native farmland roots. In 1999, Davis authorized Garfield and Odie to be used by Boys Life magazine and the Cub Scouts in order to promote recruiting, where Odie and Garfield are seen wearing Cub Scout uniforms near a campfire or doing other outdoor related activities. In 2005, Davis appeared in the music video Lazy Muncie, a parody of the Saturday Night Live video "Lazy Sunday". Most recently, Jim Davis founded The Professor Garfield Foundation, to support children’s literacy. Writer Wrote the libretto to Love on a Leash . Quotes “I needed a name and thought of my grandfather James A. Garfield Davis, a big, cantankerous, cynical man. The name seemed to fit the personality and shape of the character.” “The name Odie is really an inside joke. I wrote a commercial for a local car dealership featuring Odie, the village idiot. I liked the name, so I used it again.” “The name Jon Arbuckle came from an old coffee commercial I remember hearing.

I’d also used the name as an ‘expert source’ to add ‘credibility’ to my speeches. When I created the comic strip, the name just seemed to fit the kind of poor sap who would get stuck with a cranky cat like Garfield.” “Doc Boy was named after my own brother, Dave ‘Doc’ Davis. Doc isn't nearly as goofy as his cartoon namesake; he's goofier.” “I actually did have a waitress show me that she hadn’t shaved her legs. You can’t make up this stuff!” Jim Davis - Biography - IMDb Jim Davis Biography Showing all 35 items Jump to: Overview (2) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (22) | Personal Quotes (7) Overview (2) James Robert Davis Mini Bio (1) Jim Davis was born on July 28, 1945 in Marion, Indiana, USA as James Robert Davis. He is a writer and producer, known for Garfield (2004), Garfield 2 (2006) and Garfield and Friends (1988).

He has been married to Jill Davis since July 16, 2000. They have two children. He was previously married to Carolyn Lou Altekruse. Spouse (2) ( 16 July 2000 - present) (2 children) Carolyn Lou Altekruse ( 26 July 1969 - ?) (divorced) (1 child) Trade Mark (1) The creator of Garfield the cantankerous, overweight, orange cat that hates Mondays and loves lasagna Trivia (22) Graduated from Fairmount High School in 1962 First Garfield comic strip appeared on 19 June 1978 On the 22 August 1980 strip, Jon and Garfield are sitting on a hill on Jon's parents' farm. Jon says "You're really getting into this farm thing, aren't you, Garfield?" Garfield says "Yup. Wanna swap dirt jokes?" The original copy of the strip says "Sheep jokes". It was caught after the proofs came out. The correction was sent, but some papers ran the original. The Garfield book it's in (#4) also printed the original.

Garfield's weight is 27 pounds. This is revealed in the 21 January 1986 strip, in a series of Ripley's parodies, when it says "A Jon Arbuckle claims to own a cat", which is Garfield, "who can eat 10 times its body weight. To verify this claim, we offered the cat 270 pounds of lasagna". (The strip ended, saying "The cat only ate 219 pounds of lasagna" and Garfield saying "Things went so well in rehearsal!") Both he and James Dean are born in the same town (Marion, Indiana). The inspiration for Garfield was his grandfather, Jame A. Garfield Davis; cynical, cantankerous and lovable. As well as the 25 cats Jim Davis grew up with on his Montana farm. He is in the record books of Ball State University as having accumulated the lowest GPA in the university's history. The other student who achieved this feat was David Letterman . Also created the cartoon strip "U.S. Acres," based on his childhood and life growing up on a farm in Indiana. His favorite licensed product of the "Garfield" strip is the Garfield telephone.

Beat the legendary Charles M. Schulz 's "Peanuts" as the most widely read and financially successful strip in history.

Winner of the Outstanding Young Men of America Award, 1972; National Cartoonists Society, Reuben Award for best humor strip, 1982, 1986, and 1990, Segar Award, 1985, Cartoonist of the Year, 1990; Golden Plate, American Academy of Achievement, 1983; Marketing Hall of Fame award, American Marketing Association (southern California chapter), 1983; Sagamore of the Wabash Award, State of Indiana, 1984; National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences ("Emmy") Award for outstanding animated program, 1984, for Garfield on the Town, 1985, for Garfield in the Rough, 1986, for Garfield's Hallowe'en Adventure; named Volunteer of the Year by Indiana Council of Fund Raising Executives, 1985; Forest Conservationist of the Year, Indiana Wildlife Federation, 1990; Hoosier Pride Award, 1990; Arbor Day Award, National Arbor Day Foundation, 1990; Distinguished Alumnus

 Award, American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Honorary doctorates from Ball State University and Purdue University, both 1991. Was a gymnast until he ruptured a spinal disc. Favorite movie is Airplane! (1980) Favorite song is "Shout!" by Lulu He had breathing problems when he was younger. Despite growing up with cats and drawing the comic strip Garfield, Davis owns no cats today. His wife is desperately allergic. Has one younger brother Dave "Doc". Parents are James and Betty Davis. Has one son James with ex-wife Carolyn. Has two children Ashley and Christopher with current wife Jill. His first strip before Garfield was Gnorm Nat. On advice from "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, changed Garfield's walk from one on four feet to two feet. Personal Quotes (7) When I write the comic strip, it's like watching TV in my head. I put Garfield in a situation--on a diet, camping, something--and I watch him and ask myself, 'What would he do? Where would he go? What would the other characters do and say?' I watch Garfield until he does soething funny, back up three frames and cut it off.

[on the 'diet week' Garfield strips] When I go on a diet, Garfield goes on one too. [on the PAWS, Inc. studio dedicated to the craft of Garfield] If we take care of the cat, the cat will take care of us. [on the huge worldwide "Garfield" phenomenon] I get to draw cartoons. That for me is the biggest thrill. I always tell people Garfield is a human in a cat suit. [on whether he owned a cat like Garfield] Lord no, I don't make THAT much money. [on why people can identify with Garfield] Garfield is the one who makes you feel better about polishing off the leftover pizza at 3 in the morning. See also Cartoonist Jim Davis-The Man Behind Garfield - American Profile Home Odd Jobs Cartoonist Jim Davis-The Man Behind Garfield Cartoonist Jim Davis-The Man Behind Garfield Odd Jobs, People David Mudd Growing up on a small farm near Fairmount, Ind. (pop. 2,866), Jim Davis figured he would follow in his father's footsteps and become a farmer. But as severe bouts of asthma made that job seem unlikely, the bedridden youngster began drawing to pass the time.

It was the genesis for what would become his career as a cartoonist and creator of one of America's best-loved characters-Garfield the cat. "I loved farming but just couldn't do it," says Davis, 63, at his studio complex in the countryside near Albany, Ind. (pop. 2,368). "I kept having asthma attacks. Being asthmatic, I spent a lot of time inside. TV wasn't as prevalent in the 1950s, so my mom would shove paper and pencil in my hand to entertain me." Those early stick drawings were so crude that young Jim "had to label what they were," recalls his father, James William Davis, 88. "You couldn't tell if it was a horse or a dog. His people always had belly buttons though." Rural roots During his youth, Davis and his younger brother, David, helped with farm chores and raised Black Angus cattle. Active in 4-H, he won many county fair ribbons with his prize heifer Pepper. "I learned to work through the asthma," Davis says. "When I couldn't breathe, I would grab the headboard of my bed and pull myself up to breathe and let myself back down to exhale.

To this day, I appreciate my health, appreciate being able to breathe." A shy child who stuttered, Davis attended a three-room school with two grades in each room. There he met Nellie Barnhardt, a teacher who helped him overcome his stuttering. "She would touch my throat and say, 'The words are in there, you just have to let them out one at a time,'" Davis recalls. "She taught me to say everything in my head first, to speak slowly, and I still do that today." At Fairmount High School, Davis played football and acted in theater productions. With 65 students in his graduating class, he is grateful that he attended a small country school. "I weighed 100 pounds and was asthmatic, and I still got to start in football all four years. That's the beauty of a small school. You can do so many things." After graduation, Davis attended Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. "I have the distinction of earning one of the lowest cumulative grade point averages in the history of the university," he says with a chuckle.

"A fellow classmate named David Letterman earned the other one." Creating a cat After college, Davis "lucked into a position" as an assistant to Tom Ryan, creator of the popular Tumbleweeds comic strip. "I saw the discipline and long hours it took to be a success," Davis says. "I started trying to get my own strip syndicated. It took years of trying, but finally I found a comics editor who saw something in my work." Davis originally created Gnorm Gnat with an all-insect cast, but editors told him insects aren't funny. So he turned his cartoonist talents closer to home, working on an idea about a bachelor cartoonist and his fat cat. The lazy feline kept getting all the good lines, so Davis wisely put the spotlight on the lasagna-loving, coffee-drinking, self-centered, dog-hating cat. Why a cat? "I looked around and there were plenty of strips about dogs, but none about cats," Davis says. "I knew cats.

We had 25 at one time on the farm." He named his creation after his grandfather, whom he describes as "a big guy with a dry wit who appeared gruff but deep down inside was a softie." "Garfield is a human in a cat suit," Davis explains. "People identify with him because he says and does the stuff we'd all like to say and do if we thought we could get away with it." Since the orange cat with the attitude waddled on the comic page on June 19, 1978, his popularity has spread. Garfield holds the Guinness World Record as the most widely syndicated comic strip, with 230 million daily readers. More than 135 million copies of Garfield books-translated into 27 languages-have been sold around the world. The cat also is featured on products from cups to key chains, and bedspreads to leather jackets. The entire Garfield enterprise is administered from Paws Inc., the comical cat's headquarters near Albany. "Staying in Indiana has been good for my work," Davis says. "I'm happy here and, for me, being happy is very conducive to doing humor.

I love the people here, the seasons, the trees, the quiet and lack of traffic. If things get hectic, I can go out and take a walk in the woods." The Paws complex is a state-of-the-art studio and business facility with about 60 artists, writers and licensing agents, many of whom have worked with Davis for decades. The Davis home also is on the site. "I hired my wife, Jill; that's how I met her," Davis says with a grin. "She's been here 27 years, and she's the vice president of licensing. Actually I work for her, which is a good arrangement, because it frees me up for the creative stuff." Jill and Jim have three children: Ashley, 24, who works in the Paws office; Chris, 22, a local police officer; and James, 29, serving with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan. His parents live nearby and often meet their cartoonist son for lunch in the Paws cafeteria. Even today, Davis honors his farm upbringing. "I get up about 4 in the morning," he says. "That's quiet time for me.

I love to watch the sun rise." Commuting about 100 yards to work, Davis tries to imagine what antics his witty kitty will reveal that day. "I watch Garfield. He writes his own stuff, really. I don't write. I edit," he says. "Garfield performs in my head. If I tried to make him do something funny, especially something he didn't want to do, it would look forced." Never in his wildest dreams did Davis expect Garfield would become such a success. "I was just drawing cartoons when I was little to make my mom laugh. She is still my best audience," Davis says. So what does Mom think of the feisty feline? "Well, he is very ornery," says Betty Davis, 86, giving her son an affectionate nudge in the side. "If Garfield was my son, I'd have to make him behave." Jim Davis Jim Davis Nationality: United States Executive summary: Garfield Jim Davis is the cartoonist behind the Garfield marketing phenomenon. He created the "Garfield" comic strip, featuring Garfield the lazy cat, Odie the dog, and Jon their owner. The strip appears daily in thousands of newspapers.

Davis grew up on a farm, and says his childhood asthma kept him inside a lot, so to amuse himself he doodled. As a young man, he worked in advertising for two years, then took a job as an assistant to "Tumbleweeds" creator Tom K. Ryan, where he learned the comic strip business. Davis drew his own strip for several years, called "Gnorm Gnat". When that strip was cancelled, Davis drew a giant foot crushing Gnorm. Davis says he studied other successful comic strips, and noticed that they featured lots of dogs, but few cats. That niche was his inspiration for "Garfield", which began its run on 19 June 1978. In 1981, Davis founded Paws Incorporated, a licensing company dedicated to maintaining "the quality of the Garfield character that now appears on thousands of products sold all over the world". At Paws Inc., about 20 artists, along with dozens of animators, audio-video producers and support staff all work under Davis, designing endless Garfield products -- coffee mugs, lunchpails, t-shirts, "collectable" plates, backpacks, video games, bed linen, ad nauseam.

Davis says he personally inspects the prototype for each licensed product, no matter how small, even key chains and fridge magnets. In the late 1980s, Garfields with suction-cup feet were omnipresent across America, usually stuck to car windows. Davis says "tens of millions" were sold. In 1998, Davis was inducted into the Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association Hall of Fame. Garfield merchandise is sold in 69 nations. While drawing "Garfield", Davis was also the creative force behind the comic strip "U.S. Acres", and he drew "Mr. Potatohead" when Hasbro offered him comic strip rights to the familiar children's toy. Both strips were syndicated to hundreds of newspapers, but without adequate marketing of collectibles, both faded away. Garfield and Friends, a Saturday morning cartoon, ran on CBS from 1988-94. Garfield has also appeared in several prime time TV "specials", including such classics as Here Comes Garfield, Garfield on the Town, A Garfield Christmas, and Garfield Gets a Life.

In 2004 and again in 2006, Bill Murray provided Garfield's voice for movies that featured a computer-generated Garfield, and Jennifer Love Hewitt . Father: James Davis (farmer) Mother: Anna Betty Carter Davis Brother: David "Doc" Davis Son: James Alexander Davis (b. 3-Jun-1979) High School: Fairmount High School, Fairmount, IN (1963) Jim Davis — Indiana Historical Society Info Jim Davis Jim Davis was born near Marion on July 14, 1945. He grew up on a farm with cows and many cats. He enjoyed drawing and spent hours creating pictures when he was young. Jim attended Ball State University in Muncie where he majored in art and business. After college, he became an assistant for Tom Ryan, the creator of the Tumbleweeds cartoon. Davis learned valuable skills, like how to produce a comic strip, and used this knowledge to make his own strip, Gnorm Gnat. Gnorm was a bug who did funny things, but the newspapers did not think a bug was a good main character. Jim then decided to take another approach.

He noticed there were a lot of comic strips about dogs but none about cats. Jim created a new character – a fat, lasagna-loving cat named Garfield. On June 19, 1978, the comic strip first appeared in 41 newspapers in U.S. cities like Boston, Chicago and Dallas. Today, more than 2,600 newspapers print Garfield worldwide. Garfield has been become more than just a comic strip. There are Garfield movies, a television show and lots of merchandise, like T-shirts, books and posters. With this success, Jim Davis has won many awards and is founder and president of Paws Inc., a studio that manages Garfield worldwide. Bibliography Garfield Creator Jim Davis Brings The Fat Cat Back This Holiday Season (INTERVIEW) - Biography.com Nostalgia Garfield Creator Jim Davis Brings The Fat Cat Back This Holiday Season (INTERVIEW) For all you Gen Xers and Millennials who love nostalgia, the Garfield Holiday Collection comes out this week. We chatted with Jim Davis to get the scoop on the fat cat and his longevity over all these years!

Avatar: Social count: 187140 For all you Gen Xers and Millennials who love nostalgia, the Garfield Holiday Collection comes out this week. We chatted with Jim Davis to get the scoop on the fat cat and his longevity over all these years! 187K 0 (Photo: Courtesy of Jim Davis) Garfield debuted in 41 U.S. newspapers on June 19, 1978. In its first iterations, the wry adventures of Garfield the Cat and Jon the Human were the cartooning humor of one man, Jim Davis. Today, Garfield is an empire. Davis founded Paws, Inc. in 1981 to handle all things Garfield, including strip illustration, product design, and business venturing. The company's 36,200 square-foot headquarters in Albany, IN houses 57 artists, writers, and licensing business executives who work to keep the fat cat machine running. On top of that suction cup plush doll that hangs in your mother's car, Paws Inc. touts that Garfield 's face adorns thousands of products created by 400 individual manufacturers.

Not bad for a feline that can eat his own weight in lasagna and can't lift a finger on Mondays. Garfield wouldn't be this omnipresent without Davis, whose storytelling and advertising instincts converged to form a undeniably sweet character. When Garfield started taking off in the late '70s, the character was beginning to be expanded beyond the confines of its boxy panels. Animation was a logical turn, and Davis was more than happy to help with the transition. Throughout the 1980s, Davis penned and produced half-hour cartoon specials that mixed Garfield's sarcastic voice with the topical flexibility of Peanuts. It was a matter of where Garfield couldn't go. Though Garfield Halloween, Garfield Thanksgiving, and Garfield Christmas faded from airwaves in the past two decades, they made enough of a splash with Generation Xers and Millennials of the right age that Davis saw fit to reissue a collection of the shorts for 2014 holiday consumption.

In anticipation of the Garfield Holiday Collection, I sat down with Davis to discuss how he put himself into the Garfield property over the years, the thin line between art and commerce, and his go-to recipe for lasagna (that he's shy in admitting isn't too fancy). You wrote and produced each of these early Garfield holiday specials. Garfield Christmas, in particular, seems rooted in personal stories. Do you put a lot of yourself into these? I wrote that special for me. That was my family’s Christmas every year. Because we’re here in Indiana, I thought if I wrote something for the Midwest, I’d probably reach a bigger segment of the market, something that would resonate more with the viewers. I wanted to capture the warmth of family interaction as they go through the Christmas holiday. We actually went back and re-animated before it went to video because we had worked at it so hard and CBS had committed to it so late, that there were a couple of parts of the special that were a little rough, so I went in with my own animators here at Paws [Inc.] before it went to video. Jon's grandmother rocks the piano like she's Elton John. True to life?

My grandmother was sweet but not the personality of [voice actress] Pat Carroll. Pat Carroll was so great. Every now and then you get to work with an actor or actress that blows you away. That was Pat Carroll. Her Shakespeare, her one-woman show… after meeting her, we went back and wrote stuff just for Pat. She had so much energy. I wanted to use her to bring out the warmth and tradition of Christmas. I introduced the Grandma so that I could bring in the history of Christmas. It’s the memories and people you remember that help carry the holidays. A lot of entertainment is born from “the coasts” since the industry is primarily in Los Angeles and New York. Do you think Garfield stands up for a part of American culture that's lost from those perspectives? Well, he basically eats and he sleeps, so that has mass appeal right there. But you know what? In 1978, he was a bad boy. He hated Mondays! He loved coffee and overslept. Then long came The Simpsons. “Don’t have a cow, man” and all that stuff. That was really bad. Then along came Beavis & Butthead. They were really bad! Then cams South Park.

Thirty-six years later, even though Garfield is doing the same stuff he was in 1978, he’s mainstream and Mom-approved. The audience shifted in front of him. Obviously he seems sweeter, even though he’s got that edge. At worst he’s naughty. He speaks his mind, but we all wish we could speak our minds like that. Did you ever think of changing Garfield to keep up with that evolving audience? (Photo: Courtesy Jim Davis) Starting about three or four months ago, we gave Jon a flat screen TV. And a wireless telephone. He started texting a year ago. Working with situational humor has become more difficult. It’s easy to get a laugh with bodily function or fart humor. I try to get the laughs without that. The situational humor is what I trade on. That’s not in politics or social commentary. All of that passes and changes. If I try to make him hip, he’s not going to be hip later. If he’s saying, “That’s a-OK, everyone!” that immediately dates him. Thirty years from now, I want people to enjoy the specials, the strips, the books, things like that. You were in advertising in the '60s.

Because I just finished binge-watching Mad Men I have certain ideas of what that was like. What was your experience and how did Garfield come out of it? My ad experience wasn’t real ad experience. I wasn’t Leo Burnett back then. I was pay stub boy. It was 100 hours a week and I was on Tums. Everything is last minute. One thing it did do was [help me] be able to take a look at what motivates people, write the kind of copy and create an image that’ll get them to show up to the Muncie Mall, to make them look or buy a product. It gave me an appreciation of printing processes. It better prepared me for getting into licensing. If I got into licensing, I wanted to do it right. I wanted to create product geared to that product’s market and to craft a way for Garfield to entertain on that product in a way that you couldn’t entertain in the comic strip. I used the ad man mentality when it came to the licensing. I think that served me well. It's widely known that Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson swore off merchandising because he felt it infringed on artistic integrity.

How would you respond to the idea that they’re mutually exclusive? [Merchandising] teaches me more about the character, frankly. Every time I do something with Garfield in 3D or do something where I’m commenting on something else, it polishes another facet of his personality. I see more of Garfield than I would if I was just seeing Garfield do his comic strip things. When I try to translate him for other cultures, I learn more about him. He physically exists in my head. I can hear him and I can see him. The experience across all the other industries over the year has helped me get a feel for the character. Is there anything specific you learned? He learned not to take himself so seriously. Look at these specials. At some point in all of them he turns to the character and goes, “Nice touch.” That’s not mentioned anywhere. I like to do something that impresses him. He’s knocked down that fourth wall. He talks to the viewer. I can’t think of a specific thing I’ve learned about him from a product, but putting him with a teddy bear, I think he’s more sentimental. I think I’m more sentimental after 36 years.

Odie has gone from becoming an object kicked off a table — I created Odie to have that friction — to being a brother. He’ll stick kick him off the table, it’s part of their DNA. But there’s greater depth to him. More of a family relationship. Are the comics still important now that newspapers are fading and Garfield is so pervasive in other realms? That’s what I do. That’s what I really look forward to today. It provides the grist for the mill for everyone to work from. I love the comic strip. That’s part of me. The papers that went away were the over-leveraged papers that were bought and sold so many times. They had too big a debt load that could be supported by their advertising revenues. They’re regional papers, family owned papers, small chains and stuff like that are still profitable. They’ll be around for some time. Obviously they won’t be around in the kind of numbers or enjoy the kind of success that they did many years ago, but fortunately, the comics have translated very well to online. Kids online expect intellectual properties and content for free, so monetizing has been a bit of a challenge.

When we started, there were only 300 to 350 syndicated cartoonists. Now there are 300,000 cartoonists. That’s great. We’re looking over our shoulders now because these kids are good. Finally, how do you prefer your lasagna? The more basic the better. It has to have meat in it. It has to have cheese in it. I didn’t say Good Housekeeping.... The Garfield Holiday Collection is available on DVD exclusively at Walmart stores on November 4th and on iTunes and other digital platforms on November 11th. Tags ‘Garfield’ Creator Jim Davis On His Creation and Why Bill Murray Would Do Another Movie | IndieWire ‘Garfield’ Creator Jim Davis On His Creation and Why Bill Murray Would Do Another Movie 'Garfield' Creator Jim Davis On His Creation and Why Bill Murray Would Do Another Movie Talk "Garfield" has been a part of the American cartoon culture since 1978 and is "The Most Widely Syndicated Comic Strip in the World," according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

"Garfield" creator Jim Davis stills owns his kitty creation and is releasing a "Garfield Holiday Collection" on DVD today, November 4 and on digital November 11. The collection includes his Emmy Award-winning TV episodes "Garfield Halloween Adventure" and "Garfield on the Town" as well as Emmy Award-nominated "A Garfield Christmas and "A Garfield Thanksgiving" and "Garfield in Paradise." Davis chatted with Indiewire just before the collection’s release to detail the origins of the lasagna-loving feline and the state of cartoons today. So take me back to the beginning. How did Garfield come into existence? I had worked for nine years on the "Tumbleweeds" comic strip as Tom Ryan’s assistant, and during that time I tried a lot of ideas on my own to get my own strip started. I had a bug idea, a bug strip. I submitted a lot of ideas to newspaper syndicates and finally an editor said, "Your scripts are great but bugs? Nobody can relate." So I took a long hard look at the comics and I thought, "Dogs are doing really well.

Snoopy, Marmaduke and so on." So if dogs were doing well, I thought maybe people would want to see cats. I’d grown up on a farm with a lot of cats and so I was comfortable with the material. As I was putting the strip together, I wanted to work with animals anyway because having worked on "Tumbleweeds," it was a western strip with cowboys and Indians, Tom Ryan was always getting grief from Native American rights groups and women’s groups too because Hildegard Hamhocker was always chasing the main character Tumbleweeds in the strip. I thought, I’ll work with animals—they don’t pick on people. It occurred to me that cats were being held back a little bit. I thought, I’ll give the cat human thoughts and feelings but not be apologetic for it. That would be very catlike. So I envisioned Garfield, which was my grandfather’s name, and he was a large, stubborn man with these human feelings. I let some people I knew influence the character and put them together. From there I created contrasts like Odie and other characters because they really create the humor. I worked with that and created several weeks worth of scripts then started showing it around.

How did you develop his personality? He acts like most people wish they could act, but he’s a cat so he gets to say it. He just wants to eat, sleep, watch T.V and be left alone. I think you nailed the appeal of the character. We learned early on that Garfield would say what we don’t have the courage to say. We’re all out for three things: food, shelter and love. Garfield’s out just for that. He’s not overbearing in that respect. We live in a time where we’re made to feel guilty about overeating, oversleeping and not exercising. Garfield not only does ALL that, but he doesn’t apologize for it. He’s cool with that and I think, in part, he really is without guilt. All I do is hold a mirror to the reader and shout back with a humorous twist.

More often than not, when people laugh at the Garfield strip and laugh at Garfield it’s because they’re saying, "Isn’t that true?" They see a little bit of themselves in it, and once, I think, if I can get a reader to see a little bit of themselves, see their own lives in the feature, then that helps develop affection and it resonates with the reader. That’s really what I’m out for, and I think Garfield represents that. When you’re dealing with eating and sleeping, people have to relate to it. [Laughs] Tell me about the origins of the animated series. Is this something you envisioned working on the comic strip? Actually no, but the surprising thing was, it’s actually easier working on animation than working on a comic strip, because Garfield is animated in my head. Lee Mendelson came to me and said, "I’m doing a special on the comics," and this is 1980 and for CBS. They wanted to do something on the Sunday comics, and "Garfield" at that time was just getting some attention and was growing..

I found that it’s easier to do a gag [on TV] because in a comic strip I only have 25 words or less, and I had to freeze Garfield in three frames: set up the gag, twist the gag, resolve the gag and then that’s it. It’s only done in basically black and white. No animation or sound or music. I learned early on with animation you can let him go, you can put musical cues and with sound effects you can really help a gag flow. For me the animating was easier. Then CBS came back and asked if we would do a special, and that got everything started. The special on the comics was very well received. Back then, there were only three networks! [Laughs] It was a really big deal when CBS called back. We thought that we’d arrived. When it came to developing the plot lines for each episode, did you go back and pull from some of the strips or did you come up with all new ideas? A lot of the gags from the early specials were one-liners from the strips. But, because it has to be one story for 22 minutes, I wanted to do something where something was put at risk.

Not necessarily by his life or anything like that. But the well being, the health, the family, we wanted something put at risk and then resolved. I wanted to take 22 minutes to make them laugh, to make them cry, to make them think somewhere in there so people feel like spent a half hour well. [Laughs] It needed to be worth watching the half hour show. I created all new stories because I could and because I had to think of it as a 22-minute strip. An extreme Sunday strip, something like that so that it can have a beginning, middle and end. You brought up Saturday morning cartoons. I read a piece recently that on network TV there were no more Saturday morning cartoons anymore, at least on the non-cable networks. Why do you think happened? Do you have any thoughts on the state of cartoons on TV right now, either for kids or adults? I also read that there’s no longer going to be Saturday morning cartoons and I thought, "Okay, they’re doing a lot more live action, they’re doing a lot more this and that." Actually there’s a lot of competition for the networks from cable and from online for cartooning day and night. There are more cartoon channels and Cartoon Network.

We’re on Cartoon Network. So it’s everywhere, and it’s everywhere all the time so the need for having it just on Saturday mornings really went away. We were there at the cross roads of when cable took over network. We had standards and practices looking at our material. "The Simpsons" was doing stuff that was very edgy and appealing to a new generation quite frankly. Also, they had publishing companies and licensing companies coming in and doing things as if it were "The Transformers" and things like that, basically giving it to the networks for free. When we were doing it, we had production expenses to pay. [Laughs] It got very hard to compete later on because cable didn’t have the kind of controls we adhered to. We also couldn’t match the kind of budgets that the toy companies were working with and offering to the networks to put stuff up for free so it made it very difficult. Thankfully, cartooning like you say, is still alive and well. It’s still attracting an adult following. This new generation of kids is getting even more visual online which really bodes well for cartooning and animation. Tell me a bit about adapting your character for the "Garfield" films from the early 2000s?

That was great fun because it was a big challenge doing an animated "Garfield." We actually did work with the writers of "Toy Story" to do those two movies. We spent a week together before the first movie and we went through every piece of animation and spoke about what worked, what didn’t work, what I liked, what I didn’t like and we actually worked on the story treatment for the first movie during that week. We worked closely with Joel [Cohen] and Alec [Sokolow] and we had a great time, and we were on the set several times and I got to know the actors. I had a credit on the actual script— I actually did part of the script, so it was great. The second one had a very different appeal since it was in England. We had fun with that too. I think they were warm, I think they were genuine, they were very "Garfield" and I’m very proud of them. I think they’ll hold up for a long time to come, even though it was a very different look and a little bit different style for "Garfield," I think it worked well for that genre. Plus it must have been insane to have Bill Murray voice your creation.

He’s a nutcase! He is a nutcase! [Laughs]. I’ll tell you one thing. He said he thought it was the Coen Brothers who were writing it actually. He’s having fun with the press on that because if we were doing another one with Davis Entertainment, Bill Murray would do it again.

Question: What is the name of the cartoon cat created by Jim Davis?
Answer: GARFIELD